Last week I had the pleasure to listen to Dawit Solomon talk about his research on preserving soil in Africa.  At first, I thought this lecture would be focusing on how important soil is to every ecosystem and the implications of ignoring the impacts of soil degradation.  Dr. Soloman did briefly mention this, but I never thought that soil had a direct impact on climate change.  He explained that soil can be used as carbon sinks, which can have significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions.  In fact, soil contains more carbon than vegetation.  It is impressive to see how researching soil can vary from wide scale land research all the way to a microscopic level.

In addition, Dr. Soloman surprised me on his discussion about the quality of soil declining in Africa because of isolated communities and lack of resources in Africa.  Many towns in Africa do not have the money nor the power needed to import fertilizers that are usually cheap in developed countries.  Thus, his research focused on indigenous sustainability of soil management systems.  He worked in West Africa and transformed the resources within communities to transform infertile soil to fertile soil.  Dr. Soloman implemented his system by burning discarded cow bones, which are very rich in nutrients, and compacting them into tiny pellets of fertilizer.  This is an economical solution to making the soil fertile for future plantings and could be beneficial to many communities throughout the world.